The rationale behind the draft of the resolution was to regulate the use of conscientious objection by reproductive healthcare providers. The resolution did not pass as proposed and its provisions were severely diluted by a number of harmful anti-abortion amendments. As a result, instead of offering a set of comprehensive guidelines from a regional or international body on how governments must balance a woman’s right to reproductive health and autonomy with an individual’s right to conscientious objection, the adopted resolution: (1) fails to oblige health care institutions to provide legal health services to the public; (2) enables both doctors and institutions to refuse emergency care without being held liable; (3) is based on the false assumption that the practice of conscientious objection is adequately regulated in the vast majority of Council of Europe member states.

“25 organizations-members of ASTRA Network supported by Action Canada for Population and Development (Canada), Association for Women’s Rights in Development, Catholics for Choice (USA), Center for Reproductive Rights, Family Planning Association (Ireland), French Family Planning Movement (France), International Women’s Health Coalition, IPAS, Sensoa (Belgium), Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (Sweden) expressed deep concern with the result of voting on the resolution “Women’s access to lawful medical care: the problem of unregulated use of conscientious objection” that took place during the 35th sitting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in a letter sent to the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Mr Mevlüt Çavusoğlu.

October 7, 2010

New York, NY – Today, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) undercut a resolution intended to regulate the use of conscientious objection by reproductive healthcare providers. The resolution did not pass as proposed and its provisions were severely diluted by a number of harmful anti-abortion amendments.

“It is truly a dismal day in Europe when the lives and health of women take a back seat to political agendas and ideological imperatives,” said Christina Zampas, regional manager and senior legal adviser for Europe at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “Today’s disappointing vote shows the growing political power of the anti-choice movement among both governments and civil society, as well as a lack of political commitment to women’s reproductive health by ostensibly pro-choice politicians.”

The resolution would have offered the first set of comprehensive guidelines from a regional or international body on how governments must balance a woman’s right to reproductive health and autonomy with an individual’s right to conscientious objection. In many member states of the Council of Europe, the practice of conscientious objection in the medical field is largely unregulated. As a result, healthcare providers deny women access to lawful reproductive health services based on moral or religious objections–severely impacting their health and lives. The PACE resolution as originally proposed recommended that governments develop comprehensive regulations and guarantee the right to conscientious objection only to individuals, not to public health facilities. They also recommended that public facilities provide patients with information on all of their medical options and treatment in cases of emergency regardless of an individual practitioner’s objections.

“When a healthcare worker objects to providing legal reproductive services because of his or her conscience, it is imperative to a woman’s health and life that the government make sure that she can still get the services she needs and is legally entitled,” said Zampas, whose expertise helped draft a report presented to PACE on the unregulated use of conscientious objection.

In a number of European countries, including Italy, Poland, Hungary, and Croatia, there are laws requiring doctors to inform patients of any conscientious objection to a procedure and refer the patients to another provider, but there is no oversight mechanism. For example, the Center is currently working closely with the Polish Federation for Women and Family Planning and the Warsaw University Law Clinic on a lawsuit against Poland in the European Court of Human Rights for the death of a woman who was refused treatment for colon disease because doctors feared it would harm the fetus. Edyta* was two months pregnant when she was diagnosed with the painful colon disease which was aggravated by her pregnancy. When she sought medical care in her Polish hometown and other cities, however, doctor after doctor refused to treat her illness because she was pregnant. They repeatedly expressed concern about the fetus, but none of them formally raised a moral or religious objection so they did not have to refer Edyta to a doctor that would treat her. Edyta’s symptoms grew worse until she miscarried and eventually, died. The lawsuit aims to ensure that Poland maintains enough healthcare workers who are willing to provide all legal health services and that patients get timely referrals. The suit also asks the court to prohibit hospitals and other institutions from invoking conscientious objection or using it to deny patients information or emergency care.

During its 3rd plenary session in Strasbourg that was held from 21-24 June 2010, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Social Affairs and Health adopted the report without any additional amendments. This is the first and important vote before the report will go to the Plenary in October to be adopted by all 47 Council of Europe Members States Parliamentarians.

The report and the draft Resolution will be the first documents on the level of the Council of Europe to address and regulate the practice of conscientious objection-the right of health services providers, including doctors, nurses and other medical personnel to refuse to provide certain health services based on religious, moral or philosophical grounds. The main purposeof the report is to ensure that the practice of conscientious objection which often arises in provision of reproductive health services does not prevent women from accessing lawful medical care in a timely manner. In the report the Rapporteur Hon. Christine McCafferty (Socialist, UK) expresses her concern about the increasing and largely unregulated occurrence of the practice of conscientious objection, especially in the field of reproductive health. If adopted, the Resolution will call on Member States to develop comprehensive and clear regulations that define and regulate conscientious objection with regard to health and medical services including reproductive health as well as to provide oversight and monitoring.

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